DECAY IN THE APPLE BARREL. 83 



be applied while the fruits are growing upon the trees. Thus the 

 work of the prevention begins a long time previous to picking 

 while the barrel -staves are possibly still in the living forest tree. 

 This reminds one of the time when the boy's education should be- 

 gin as stated by Dr. Holmes, namely, with his grandfather when 

 he was a small lad. 



Up to this point remarks concerning the mechanical treatment 

 of apples have been purposely withheld. There is no question 

 about the importance of so far as possible preventing the bruis- 

 ing of the fruit. From what has been said in strong terms con- 

 cerning the barrier of a tough skin which Nature has placed upon 

 the apples, it goes without saying that this defense should not be 

 ruthlessly broken down. It may be safely assumed that germs of 

 decay are lurking almost everywhere, ready to come in contact 

 with any substances. A bruise or cut in the skin is therefore 

 even worse than a rough place caused by a scab fungus as a 

 lodgment provided by the minute spores of various sorts. If the 

 juice exudes, it at once furnishes the choicest of conditions for 

 molds to grow. An apple bruised is a fruit for the decay of 

 which germs are specially invited, and when such a specimen is 

 placed in the midst of other fruit it soon becomes a point of infec- 

 tion for its neighbors on all sides. Seldom is a fully rotten apple 

 found in a bin without several others near by it being more or less 

 affected. A rotten apple is not its brother's keeper. 



The surrounding conditions favor or retard the growth of the 

 decay fungi. If the temperature is near freezing they are com- 

 paratively inactive, but when the room is warm and moist the 

 fruit can not be expected to keep well. Cold storage naturally 

 checks the decay. The ideal apple has no fungous defacements 

 and no bruises. If it could be placed in a dry, cool room free from 

 fungous germs it ought to keep indefinitely until chemical change 

 ruins it as an article of food. But the facts in the case are far 

 different from this ideal. The apple when gathered from the tree 

 may have the germs of decay already within its tissue. They 

 may have extended through the basin, become firmly located in 

 the ragged remnants of the flower or by means of some insect or 

 " worm " that has bit or burrowed the fruit. Its stem may have 

 been broken close to the fruit or pulled out from it, or over the 

 surface specks and scabs may have formed during the season of 

 growth that have so destroyed the skin as to furnish a ready en- 

 trance for other more destructive germs. Bruises of the pulp 

 and breaks in the skin expose the soft, highly decomposable flesh 

 to the " seeds " of decay, and as one contemplates what an apple is 

 made of and its many enemies, it seems almost a marvel that 

 fruit keeps at all until it is cooked to kill the germs within it and 

 then canned to prevent the entrance of those that are without. It 



